Hi Everybody,
We're back on Bonaire!! It really does feel like coming home . . . (camera dollies in and zooms to extreme close-up of couple on the front porch of a little yellow house where we see goofy smiles and misty eyes.)
Least significant news: the hot plate on our coffeemaker no longer works, so after the pot is made it just sits there and gets cold; new coffee maker in our future. Most significant news: we got a message from Jacob and he starts training in his new job today!! We are very happy and wish him congratulations and good luck.
We enjoyed seeing all of you over the summer months and marvel at the way your "life situations" evolve and have great confidence in your abilities to meet challenges and embrace the future. All twelve of you are in our thoughts daily and no mention here can fully express how proud we are of each of you.
A quick mention of Burning Man. As you know we, along with Geoffery and a second front including Roger, Bonnie and Evan (along with sixty thousand of our closest friends) were at Burning Man the week prior to returning to Bonaire. We quickly made friends with our neighbors Soothie and Beth, the Helicopter Art Car boys that Roger and I camped with last year (Geoff's buddies), along with Doobie Man and his whole crew and got into the swing of things. Before the week was out we were riding around the Playa atop the Helicopter Art Car, LED lights blazing and music blaring, with Bonnie, resplendent in her LED dreadlocks and Berit with her pink hair wig and fairy wings, fending off the admiring young men who flocked to the spectacle of the art car winding its way through the dusty sea of playa partiers. A lot of alliteration, I know, for an apt allegory of aging acolytes engaged in arduous adventure but I wanted it in the record that we had fun.
We arrived on the island to find Robert had done a great job watching after out little house. After a few days of cleaning, errands and delivering the "imports" and gifts brought for our friends, we got down to the serious business of diving. After a nice checkout dive at The Lake where we identified leaks and trimmed out our new gear configurations, we took our new and modified lionfish spears to Fish Hut South and killed a bunch of Lionfish that Berit cleaned and froze in anticipation of our next fish fry.
It turns out that, Tal Bixby (the inventor of the only legal lionfish spear here on Bonaire, the ELF) is on the island and we're invited to a meeting with him tonight to view the latest iterations of his spear and its newest features. Among those attending will be our friend Bas Noij, who coincidentally just rescued a diver in trouble from a freak occurrence of rough surf at The Lake. The surf was the result of tropical storm Maria and the diver had been clinging to a mooring buoy at the dive site afraid to swim in through the pounding surf. Bas and Bonaire Marine Park manager Ramón, swam out to him and brought him in unhurt. Berit and I dove this site the next day without incident.
Today was to be my first scooter dive at the East coast site Onima during the first wind reversal since our arrival. (They occur from time to time during this part of the year and make East coast diving possible.) But the rain has been pouring down instead. We have gone from a very hot 35 degrees to a quite pleasant 26 degrees in less than twelve hours. Since there is no Fahrenheit scale on our Celsius thermometer we have become accustomed to the metric designator. In order to convert we have to jump through hoops, so as a rule we don’t, but for the record, 35 = 95 degrees and 26 = 79 degrees. The water when at depth ranges from 78 degrees to 88 degrees; the deeper you go the colder it gets.
As far as politics are concerned, the local situation rivals the US in drama and intrigue. In other words, situation normal all f'd up. Robert was involved in a local protest march last week and still looks forward to revolution and independence from the Dutch.
For out part we're happy to be back and look forward to the coming weeks and months of life on our island paradise.
Talk with you soon!
Love, Dad
